Medics in Tana River agree to attend to cholera victims

Doctors and nurses in Tana River County have agreed to balance between the strike and saving lives of scores of residents afflicted by a fresh wave of cholera outbreak in Tana Delta sub-county.

The county’s Health and Sanitation executive Hassan Bare said there was a local arrangement with striking doctors and nurses to attend to cholera patients in villages to avert deaths.

The health workers have agreed to attend to the affected people in their villages and not in hospitals or dispensaries, presumably to avoid being branded traitors by their colleagues countrywide who have downed tools since Monday.

“We pleaded with them to give priority to humanity and value sanctity of life by balancing between strike and attending to our people glaring at death due to the cholera,”  Mr Bare the Nation Friday. 

Two nurses and some doctors had agreed to work with a team of public health officers to attend to the fresh cholera outbreak within Garsen township, he added.

“We mobilised our emergence response team to carry out surveillances and public health education in affected villages,” Mr Bare said.

Tana Delta Sub-County Medical Officer of Health Nicholas Mwenda said one patient was in a critical condition while about 10 were stable.

Dr Mwenda added that the 50-year-old woman and her son who succumbed to the disease on Thursday in Malakoteni village had not received medical attention.

“All those who came in contact with the two bodies during burial and before they passed on were issued with drugs,” said the medical officer.  

We have been experiencing intermittent outbreaks which led to one to two deaths and every time we had to deal with the situation by treating patients and conduct public health awareness campaign,” added Mr Mwenda.

The nurses and doctors insisted that they are on strike and they only agreed to provide humanitarian support to the victims of the fresh cholera outbreak.

They talked of lack of provision of adequate resources from the county government accused  to enable them to conclusively contain cholera which has killed about 30 people and seen more than 683 treated and discharged from hospitals throughout the year.

“Doctors, nurses and other health workers in Tana River County have become a laughing stock of their professional peers in the country who keep wondering which medicine schools  we attended that we cannot prevent cholera and its related deaths,” they said.

The health workers attributed the frequent cholera outbreaks to poor hygiene and blamed public health officers of sleeping on the job.

“We have a serious sanitation problem in the county which can be easily addressed. We have a serious issue of open defecation which fuel this situation. We have expertise to deal with but when you are not properly facilitated, how can you overcome this.’’